Hey, Riggs! Meet me at UNC for my MLK speech

Actor Danny Glover will give the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s 29th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture.

The star of “Lethal Weapon,” “Predator 2” and “The Color Purple” has been an advocate for economic justice, accessible health care and education. He has worked with the United Farm Workers; Black Aids Institute; The Algebra Project, which promotes quality public education; and the Vanguard Public Foundation, an anti-racisim, equal-rights organization.

Glover, who will speak at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 21 in Memorial Hall, will discuss how he was influenced by King’s life and legacy. Free tickets can be picked up at the Memorial Hall box office starting Jan. 12.

The Research Triangle Park-based division of Bayer AG on Nov. 29 received approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission for a 24-kilowatt photovoltaic facility that will be located at its site in Clayton. The rooftop unit will be installed by Chapel Hill company Solar Tech South. All power generated from the facility will be sold to Progress Energy.

Ha! Ha! Ha! LOL. :)

Put it on your calendar right now – Feb. 4-27 for the 10th annual North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival. Billed as having grown into one of the largest such gatherings in the nation, this year’s festival will be staged at six venues in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Last year’s festival boasted more than 500 performers from 17 states and Canada, and organizers say they’re on pace to match or beat those numbers. Among guests booked so far for 2010 are Eddie Brill, who books talent for “The Late Show with David Letterman,” Jill Bernard and her one-woman show Drum Machine, Chicago’s Beatbox and New York’s Death by Roo Roo. Learn more at www.nccomedyarts.com

Haven’t seen that adorable chihuaha for a while, but Taco Bell’s advertising continues to stand out.

Analytics firm Ace Metrix has declared Taco Bell’s 2009 television ad campaign the best of the year. The Irvine, Calif., firm’s most effective commercial, titled “People Sing Piña Colada,” blended a spoof of “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” with scenes of people turning to Taco Bell’s Frutista Freeze drink for a break from the everyday tribulations of work.

Outback Steakhouse took the No. 2 spot for its bloomin’ onions for veterans spot, and Hardee’s was No. 3 for its French dip thickburger, “better when it’s French” campaign.

Congratulations to Dancing Moon Books & Gifts as the new age bookstore celebrates its 20th anniversary on Jan. 15.

Started in a 900-square-foot house near downtown Raleigh in 1990, Dancing Moon now is housed on a 3,400-square-foot space on Wake Forest Road that includes a tea room, a wellness center and two classrooms.

The store is owned and operated by Cherry Lea.

Most Christmas trees in the Triangle are down by now but at least one still stands tall – a loblolly pine tree atop the expansion project of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Just before Christmas, the tree was hoisted four stories and fastened to a steel beam atop the skeleton of the $10.4 million Biotech Center expansion. This “topping out ceremony” is a tradition in the construction industry dating to the earliest wood structures in Europe. A tree branch placed atop a building expressed appreciation to the forest. Immigrants brought the custom to America, and construction workers continue the practice to represent the handover of iron work to other trades.

Jim Shamp, senior editor at the Biotech Center, tells Biz this loblolly pine tree is particularly symbolic because of its place in local research. North Carolina State University is growing and testing the trees to select certain characteristics, such as disease resistance.

Be careful. The litter police are alert, and they’re aiming to squash all you litterbugs out there.

Through the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Swat-A-Litterbug program, citizens are encouraged to file a complaint when they see a case of roadside littering.

And the numbers are now in for 2009: More than 11,700 littering reports were received and processed through the year – a 20 percent increase over 2008.

“This increase in reports shows that North Carolinians are tired of seeing people litter and are continuing support of the department’s Swat-A-Litterbug program,” said Transportation Secretary Gene Conti.

Litterbugs who are tattled on are sent a letter signed by the colonel of the Highway Patrol. It informs them that they were seen littering and that littering is illegal. Fines for littering range from $250 to $2,000 and can cost a point on an offender’s driver’s license, as well as community service work.

So find a trashcan, dang it!

Talk about taking technology from the classroom to the real world. That’s exactly what’s happened through a program in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In the program, called SoftLaunch, executive MBA students develop business plans for ventures they plan to launch. Two of those companies have indeed launched and have won kudos from yours truly, Triangle Business Journal, and sister pub Charlotte Business Journal.

Spectraforce Technologies was No. 3 on last year’s TBJ Fast 50 list of fastest-growing companies in the Triangle. Amit Singh, who was an evening MBA student at Kenan-Flager, is CEO and co-founder of Spectraforce.

Aviation services company Jetpool was ranked No. 3 on the Charlotte Business Journal Fast 50 list. Ryan Stone is co-founder and CEO of Jetpool.

Both Singh and Stone wrote their businesse plans in Ted Zoller’s SoftLaunch class for executive MBAs. “I’ve been privileged to coach these terrific entrepreneurs – Amit and Ryan – who are the model examples of the leadership we need in today’s economy,” Zoller tells Biz.

Spectraforce is an IT consulting and outsourcing firm that employs 400 in the Triangle and 500 in India. Jetpool manages private aircraft for corporate owners, operating an outsourced flight department.

Well, apparently it is possible to update the world of Conan. Durham-based Funcom’s “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures” has been named the Most Improved Game of 2009 by the Web site MMORPG.com.

The Web site extensively follows the massive multiplayer online role playing game market, and rated “Age of Conan” against other well-known games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Lord of the Rings Online. “Age of Conan” was launched in 2008 and sold more than 1.2 million copies, making in the third best-selling PC game in 2008. It has been updated five times since its launch.

If you haven’t had a chance to see a copy, be informed that The Wake County Physician Magazine is one of the more interesting publications in the market.

One would rightly assume that a magazine with such a title would hold little interest for those outside the field of medicine.

Not the case at all.

The magazine clearly bears the imprimatur of Dr. Assad Meymandi, a geriatric psychiatrist better known for his philanthropic work in the Triangle. The magazine, which was founded and continues to be edited by Meymandi, is smart, provocative, sassy, informative and occasionally breezy.

The most recent issue of the magazine, now in its 15th year of publishing, contains an editorial by Meymandi concerning the suicide deaths of his good friend Sir Edward Downes and Downes’ wife Joan, both of whom were suffering from excrutiating illnesses.

Meymandi related how the Downeses traveled to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, with their children to put an end to their lives. In doing so, Meymandi raises the issue of when choosing death is a right.

The letters section contains missives from scholars spanning the globe. John Dancy, former chief corrspondent for NBC News, pens a column on the arts, and the issue now out has an article on North Carolina wines by Phil Kirk.

Through and through, it’s a good read.

Even UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp weighed in with a piece in the most recent issue of The Wake County Physician Magazine, humorously revealing one of his favorite perks as chancellor while extolling the virtues of the UNC Health Care System.

“Since my last regular column,” Thorp wrote, “the Thorp family has quite an exciting ride. We moved from Carrboro to the Chancellor’s residence at Quail Hill and we moved from Section 222, Row R at the Smith Center to the third row next to Dick Vitale.”